Game of Thrones Episode 5: White Walkers Are the New Black

Today, we mourn Hodor—but first, a note on Game of Thrones and its misogyny. There’s an article over at XO Jane—about author Rebecca Bohanan’s boyfriend ultimately coming around to her position on the series as unforgivably sexist—that I kept thinking of during this week’s episode, especially its first scenes.

Littlefinger comes to Sansa’s “aid” with the knights of the Vale and is confronted by his former charge. Did he know about the psychopath Ramsay Bolton? Would he like to hear what Ramsay did to her? It’s the insistence and repetition of this latter question that recalled Bohanan’s article, and which one can be forgiven for having two minds about. Is this—using women and sexual brutality against them—a form of titillation, or are the writers using the act of Sansa’s repeated rape and abuse as a legitimate means to develop both Sansa and Littlefinger’s characters? Did we need this if we are to contemplate what might be real regret and sympathy, or supreme gamesmanship, pass through Petyr Baelish’s eyes? I have yet to formulate an answer, but the scene is riveting.

Over in Braavos, Arya is getting more staff training from the Waif, the world’s sternest Yeshiva instructor. The silhouette formed by the Waif’s strong, plain tunic, tightly cinched and with its skirt extending far past her knees, will be familiar to anyone who remembers Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fall 1993 show or has ever visited the Upper East Side. Arya is reintroduced to the House of Black and White’s floor, but also to the notion that the girl—sent to murder an actress who plays out Arya’s family’s drama onstage—might not be “No One” after all, that she cannot depart from her identity as Lady Stark. As Arya stalks her prey backstage, we finally get full-frontal male nudity that we’ve been clamoring for in the vain hopes of equality, but of a less-than-appealing variety (a young man is examining his genital warts). This is immediately followed by a gratuitous shot of a woman’s untrammeled chest, which lasts three times as long.

On the Iron Islands, a coronation ceremony, seemingly sponsored by Rick Owens, should place Yara Greyjoy on the throne, but her uncle, fresh from murdering her father, usurps the position, leading Yara and her brother to sail off with the Ironborn’s best ships. I suspect a naval battle on the level of Salamis might be in our future, but let’s focus for a second on some numbers. One of the great pleasures of Game of Thrones is the high production value afforded by HBO’s seemingly unlimited resources, and yet why does it seem like there are all of 100 people attending this ceremony? It makes the Iron Islands seem less like a nation-state and more like a defunct Nova Scotia fishing village.

The flip side of this coin is in evidence as we move to Bran, still with his tree people, still having visions. We learn through one vision that the ultraviolent tree sprites are the ones who created the White Walkers, while in a subsequent one, Bran makes contact with said ice zombies, which allows them to locate and attack his refuge IRL. The White Walker army seems massive; when the camera pulls back, their numbers create a thick wood of deathly soldiers among the snowy peaks. It’s worth noting that when the producers have free rein with CGI, creating more monsters as opposed to humans, the numbers are appropriate and impressive, intimidatingly so.

In the ensuing battle, which allows Bran to escape with Meera pulling his sled, Hodor’s only utterance becomes metonymy for both his existence and its extinguishment. Bran is in Hodor’s head, in the past when he’s still a boy, as Meera screams at him in the present to use his might to “hold the door,” blocking the wights’ pursuit. In the ensuing panic, violence, and anachronistic mind-melding, “hold the door” becomes “Hodor,” a mystery solved in its speaker’s death.

RIP, Hodor, the gentle giant and fan favorite who provided one of the few significant (very significant) shots of male genitalia in the series. Equality, and not just in nudity, is still a long way off for Game of Thrones, and yet that sin is redeemed by so many virtues, including its ability to make us mourn a character, and to create those feelings with scenes as scintillating as this week’s final one.